With Maestros, Steve Skroce plunges you headfirst into a world of magic and mayhem that doesn’t let you stop to breathe for any longer than necessary. It’s rare for a book to have so firm of an idea of what it wants to be so early in its run, but Maestros doesn’t play around. Firmly establishing its world-building and characters, it goes all in from page one with a brutal recount of the no holds barred beatdown that kicks off the plot. From there we jump from location to characters, never slowing down, yet at the same time giving you all the information you need about what’s going on, and why, with each panel.

Speaking of the panels, Skroce pulls double duty, giving us some truly impressive artwork of several fully realized worlds and their inhabitants. While there is gore, honestly bordering on gorn at times, it’s the small beats: a quiet bookshop; someone really seeing the universe around them for the first time; a vizier’s worried face that makes this book stand out. Overall this is an epic first chapter of what seems to be a promising adventure and I look forward to seeing what’s next.